In an interview with Sports Illustrated's Richard Deitsch, Lewis was asked if he should be "a part of any studio conversation" about Hernandez and said: "It would only be to give a brief explanation on what you know. Because if you are talking about getting into the case—what happened, how it happened—that's the judge's job, that's the police's job. Having gone through the things I have been through, what I learned from that is everybody has something they want to say, and 80 percent of them are illiterate. You have to be careful with it. You can't speak about something you do not know. Give your opinion, and keep it moving from there."

Lewis and two acquaintances were charged in a double murder in 2000 in Atlanta. The murder charge against Lewis was dropped and he pleaded to a misdemeanor obstruction of justice charge after he agreed to testify against his two co-defendants, who eventually were acquitted.

Lewis told Deitsch when it comes to any controversy, he will be cautious.

"What you are comfortable with is what you know," Lewis said. "If you don't know something, don't speak about it. Bad rumors and bad messages get out when people identify with something they have no clue about. You can only speak from true experience. If a kid is not doing the right freaking things off the field, that is very simple: He needs to figure it out. He needs to get around the right crowd. He needs to have more balance. Those things are very simple, I think, to be comfortable talking about."